


The Hoagie of my Heart

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there are sandwiches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hoagie of my Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheafrotherdon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/gifts).



"Rodney."

Rodney made a noise which was not quite a groan and not quite a question. Otherwise, he didn't move.

"Rodney. _Rodney_."

Very slowly, Rodney cracked open the one eye which wasn't mashed into the pillow. Not having slept in thirty-one hours, it was hard for him to focus at first—John was little more than a long, dark blur on the couch. "Wssfgl?" he said, because that was about all the language centres of his brain were capable of right now.

"Rodney," John said in a slow, emphatic voice, as if he were about to say something very important. "There is a sandwich. Under the bed."

Rodney tried to swivel his eye in such a way that he could look through the mattress on which he was lying, but it didn't work. "Sandwich?" He hadn't eaten in at least thirty-three hours, and even if exhaustion meant that he couldn't really manage any movement from the shoulders down right now, his stomach was still more than capable of rumbling.

"Under the bed," John said helpfully.

"Woss doin' there?"

John—now resolved into a patchwork of filthy BDUs, stubble and wayward hair—scrunched up his nose and considered for a moment. "Turnin' purple."

Rodney closed his eyes again. "Purple sandwiches not for eating." He'd learned that lesson a while ago—mostly because Radek had yelled at him a lot and then Jennifer had cheerily threatened to use a stomach pump on him if he ever did it again.

"Yeah," John said. He'd flopped down on his back on the couch, his legs hanging akimbo off it. He looked more than a little debauched. Ordinarily, Rodney would be much more interested in that. "But it used to be a good sandwich. A not-purple sandwich. We could get one like that."

Rodney hummed to himself, considering. A not-purple sandwich sounded good right now. Thick slices of bread, a handful of greens, some of that salted meat they'd traded for recently, plenty of mayonnaise. Maybe some of the tomatoes that the botanists had been growing in the hydroponics bay. Ooh, and a pickle. "Could get _two_ like that," he pointed out sagely. One sandwich for him, one sandwich for John. That sounded pretty fair.

"Yeah!" John said. He sounded pretty enthused, for a guy who was covered in dried mud up to his knees. "Hey, we could make sandwiches for Ronon and Teyla!"

Rodney counted on his fingers—he really was very tired. "Four?" Four sandwiches sounded tactically unsound right about now. They would require at _least_ double the effort of two sandwiches.

"Team sandwiches," John said, struggling to sit up. He managed to kick off his boots and then flopped backwards again. "Four."

"'S'equitable sandwiches," Rodney said, shifting onto his side so he could get a better look at John. "But how?"

John blinked at him. "How are sandwiches equitable?"

Rodney glared at him. Sometimes he couldn't believe he willingly performed acts of mild-to-moderate perversity on this man on a regular basis. "_Made_, how will they be _made_?"

"Oh." John stared up at the ceiling. "Knife? Ronon has some—I know 'cause he used them today."

Rodney knew that, too. It had been very impressive what with the whirling and the throwing and the embedding in chests. Still, "Unsanitary," he pointed out. Also, "Arms."

John frowned. "He didn't cut off that guy's arms, he cut off his—"

"_No_," Rodney said, "no, arms end in hands and you use the hands to make the sandwich." He sketched out the process in the air over his head, creating imaginary sandwich deliciousness so vivid that his stomach grumbled again. "Cut into little triangles if y'r'fancy." Which Rodney was not.

"Ohhhh," John said, as if it were all now becoming clear to him. "Our hands aren't near the sandwiches."

"No," Rodney said mournfully. It was a dilemma. It was a sandwich tragedy.

John scrunched up his forehead. "We could," he declared, "have naps and _then_ make sandwiches."

"Huh." Rodney thought about this. It seemed like a solution to all their problems—sleep and sandwiches, not sandwiches and sleep. A simple inversion, but it did still have a ring of genius to it; not that he was ever telling John that. "Okay."

For a moment, there was peace in the room, and Rodney felt himself start to drift off, aching eyes closing once more. (Never again was he going to any planet which had anything that looked remotely like an ostrich—possibly this ban would even include Earth, because apparently ostriches can smell fear.) His mattress was just right, his pillows soft, his socked toes able to curl and uncurl just so, but there was something wrong, some indefinable thing that made him open his eyes and hiss, "_Sheppard_."

"Whuh?" John's eyes were closed, and he was lazily scratching at his belly where his t-shirt had ridden up.

"How am I supposed to nap with any degree of efficiency," Rodney pointed out, "if you are all the way over there?"

John lifted up his head and stared blearily at Rodney. "You want me to _move_?"

"Well, you hardly expect both of us to be able to fit onto that tiny little couch, do you? Besides, my back demands an orthopaedic mattress."

"Your mouth demands a..." John's voice trailed away into a barely audible mumble of invective and accusation, but he hauled himself up off the couch, shuffled the four steps over to the bed, and collapsed beside Rodney so heavily it made the bed shudder.

"Better," Rodney said, hooking his ankle over John's and looping his arm around John's waist. Optimum nap position had been achieved.

"Jerk," John muttered against Rodney's hair.

"Merely," Rodney said, wriggling closer to John's warmth and feeling the last of the adrenaline leach away from all his muscles, "ensuring efficient future sandwiches."

"Gee, McKay, you sure do know how to make a boy feel special."

Rodney reached out and patted him blindly. "'S'okay—my most specialest sandwiches are for you." Which was, perhaps, an unorthodox way to express what Rodney meant, but John accepted it without any apparent reservation, and so they slept.


End file.
